RATING: PG
CONTENT: adult themes
SPOLIER WARNINGS: Buffy, specifically season 2 and season 5.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own these characters, Joss and Fox do.
SUMMARY: Giles remembers what he has lost.

Memory
By Ezra
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He remembers what she looked like.

He sits at the table surrounded by his loved ones, busy with purpose and distracted by their happy chatter as they sip coffee - he drinks tea - and he does what he was born to do. He researches and guides and supports the Slayer and the somewhat odd group of people that has joined them over the years. It never feels completely right, though. Something is always missing from that close group.

Her hair was spread out over the pillow, glossy black over pure white. It looked wrong, somehow, like torn satin.

He frowns at Xander's joke, in a parental sort of way, and corrects Buffy's mistake without looking up from the ancient tome on the desk. He does that in a parental sort of way too. Acathla, not Alfalfa. Kakistos, not Tacitos. Dead, not alive. He can't help but smile when Anya asks for another pay rise: she really is demonic, he thinks, and continues to sip his warm tea. He wonders, fleetingly, if she would be there - the one that was missing - if he looked up from his book, from his teacup right now. He feels as though she would, sitting across from him with a mischievous smirk on her beautiful face.

She had the most mysterious eyes. Dark, like a summer night sky, they always seemed so vibrant when she looked at him. They weren't looking at him now. They were staring straight up, but past the ceiling. She wasn't in there.

He tells Willow about the problems with his car, bright red and sporty, it's new. He says he misses his old Citroen, and appreciates the warmth and optimism in the young witch's reply. "Its the new you," she says with a smile on her sweet face. "Shop-owner you, the Giles that owns his own business."

She didn't get to know the 'new Giles'. He wonders if she even got to know the old one. She always teased him about his car, but then she said once that it wasn't so bad that there wasn't much room inside. She didn't mind being close to him. She wasn't close to him now - she felt an eternity away. Just a body - 'just'? His mind revolted at the thought. She didn't move.

Its times like these that he truly appreciates. He'd been lonely all his life, from when he was an only child growing up in a strict household; to when he went by the name of Ripper, then later when he accepted his posting and his destiny and went halfway across the world to be a Watcher. Buffy had changed all of that, like she always did. It was because of her that he could sit in the magic shop surrounded by brave and kind people that cared about him and needed him, with whom he could talk and work and just simply be.

The room seemed empty, but it wasn't, and that was the problem. All the light had gone from the room. All the life.

Buffy gets up to go patrolling and almost reaches out a hand to touch his shoulder. They rarely touch. He sees Anya and Xander hugging and notices Willow and Tara touch hands, a casual gesture of affection. And he longs for it, that human contact. Respect and propriety hold him back from throwing his arms around Buffy and telling her he loves her like a daughter. Instead their eyes meet and hold for a moment and then she is gone.

Where had his Slayer been, those months she ran away and he felt more alone than ever before?

He recalls the last time Buffy held him. His heart had ached with such a pain, a deep, sharp, mind-numbing pain that he hadn't cared if Angelus had killed him right there. He almost wished for it. Because he had finally found someone who loved him

Jenny lay there, unmoving, shatteringly too still. Her chest didn't rise and fall with that wonderful rhythm of breathing, her eyes didn't blink, there was nothing. Jenny was there, and she was gone. Torn from him.

One by one, they all leave until he sits at the desk alone, with a pile of books and an empty teacup. He smiles and nods as they bid him goodnight and the door closes.

And in the silence he remembers how she looked.

end

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